CrystalSharp Swathes
by fowl68
Summary: There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired. Seraphim study.


**Disclaimer:** Don't own anything. The words in bold are from F. Scott Fitzgerald's _The Great Gatsby_.

**Author's Note:** Ah, Florida, where we have two kinds of weather, blinding sunshine or pouring rain, each that can last as long as a few seconds or a few days.

I've been playing Batman: Arkham Asylum and the game is exquisitely done. It's so realistic and true to the story. Can't wait for Arkham City and for Assassin's Creed: Revelations.

I tried the new Ocarina of Time remake at Best Buy a few days ago. I was rather disappointed with it. The graphics have been smoothed out a little, but it still looks very much the same as it did back in the day. I wish they had put as much effort into it as they put into Twilight Princess. The remake would have been breathtaking.

-/-/

_"And there are so many stories to tell, too many, such an excess of intertwined lives events miracles places rumors, so dense a comingalong of the improbably and the mundane."  
><em>_-Satman Rushdie** (Midnight's Children)**_

-/-/

**There are only the pursued,**

Sleep seemed like little more than a distant dream, as did food. Sometimes, Martel would catch herself dreaming about them when she and Mithos managed to find a place to catch their breaths. Mostly, the running was figurative. No one cared enough about two half-elves to chase after them. There were no places that wanted half-elves, or even elves, as the two of them tried to play themselves off as and they could never stay in one place for long.

Sometimes, Martel would sit awake at night, keeping watch over her sleeping brother, and she would try to imagine what a life without running felt like. She tried to remember life in Heimdall before things started turning really sour.

Their hut—the one that used to belong to their parents before their deaths—had been small and Martel can't remember very many details. She's never been able to do that. Her mind remembered things in large swathes of colors and sensations, not the crystal-sharp details like Mithos could. She remembered the laundry line that stretched from tree to tree and the bucket that she used to scrub the clothes in until her hands were raw and wrinkled. She remembered the field where she used to skip rope with her friends before their parents died.

After she and Mithos had been run from Heimdall_ (Run out from where they had lived their entire lives, where people _knew_ them, simply because they didn't want half-elves in their cities)_ life was a blur of town to town, mountains to valleys to fields back to mountains because they couldn't settle down, not ever, because people didn't want them.

Sometimes, Martel wished the world would simply _stop_.

**The pursuing,**

It's always there, _just_ out of reach. He sees it dangling in front of him, like a carrot before a donkey and out of the corner of his eyes, like a ghost that one only saw when not looking directly at it. He's tried closing his eyes, but then it floats in front of him in the darkness and he chases after it because he _needs_ this. _Martel_ needs this.

Sometimes, he hears it whispered through the utter silence of Derris-Kharlan; the answer that he's been searching for four thousand years, the one that will bring his sister back to him, to _them_. He can feel it brushing along his skin, by his ear and sometimes he wants to run, to get away from it because he can only take so long of chasing after something before one more piece of him wants to break.

But he spent a good portion of his life_ (His life Before all this, which is the only way he could even consider it life)_ running and he won't do it. Not anymore. So he stretches his hand out, hoping to grasp this answer and he's never ever close enough.

**The busy,**

It was strange to be in motion again after millennia of, while not sitting still, of stillness nonetheless. It was strange to be among people who were bright and vibrant and intelligent and utterly _alive_. Yuan hadn't realized how much he'd missed it.

It's exhausting to be working again. And he didn't have the excuse of sleep, though Botta had been known to jerk him away from his desk or from the building site or from the computers when he thought that his leader needed a break because, even if he _does_ have angelic abilities and strength, even angels got tired.

The Renegades were chaotic and messy and raw, still green in terms of fighting and stubborn and sometimes incredibly naïve and other times were frighteningly wise. They taunted and challenged; teased and worked with him. They ate meals with him, despite the fact that he could no longer taste the foods that, quite honestly, looked delicious. They shared secrets with him and discussed books and stories and family matters.

He may have created the Renegades, but they made him one of them. He'll be forever grateful for that.

**And the tired.**

The world was unfamiliar and small and seemed little more than a snowglobe. He left Derris-Kharlan only to go to a very different prison. This one had color and people and voices; smiles and plants and animals and children who watched him with curious, wary eyes._ (He knows the wartime eyes well and these children are very close to it. He tries to forget why that is)_

But it's still a prison, still a place that he didn't want to be in.

He saw Yuan with his people, saw how the embers of his vitality, long buried beneath Derris-Kharlan's stark white weight, have sparked into a flame again. He saw Yuan train his people, saw him commune and _b_ewith them.

Kratos hoped to whatever Spirits might still listen to someone like him that Cruxis doesn't ever catch the Renegades, that these people, with their sparks and strength, are able to succeed.

Yuan asked him if he wished to work with them, if he wanted to help bring down Cruxis.

Kratos' answers were no and yes, respectively. He told the other seraphim that he couldn't be a part of something like that again.

Were it anyone else, Kratos would have had to explain further. But Yuan simply nodded and told him that the offer would always be open.

He wandered and observed and, sometimes, found himself talking to the air if only to hear a familiar sound. At those times, Noishe's teeth found his hand with a bit that stopped just short of pain, his teeth leaving marks and drawing Kratos away from his thoughts.

Sometimes, Kratos would sit at a spot, usually in a tree or on a cliff despite his dislike for heights, and he wouldn't move for days. While he still needed to eat, his metabolism and his military training had him able to go as long as two weeks without needing nourishment. Noishe would hunt and lay beside him, thoughtful eyes watching what Kratos watched.

He would see things shift, yet not change because he still saw all the problems that had been there when he was growing up in these people, in these worlds. And, somewhere along the way, he began wondering at the point of it all.

Then he met her.


End file.
